Oh, We're Still Talking About GYN Appointments?

Yes, I'm the boss here, so this is the topic of conversation yet again.

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Love Always,
Christina

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Yesterday, when I was putting together my womanifesto about the term “pap smear,” I got hit with a bittersweet memory from GYN visits past.

I’d just graduated college. My hair glowed, bleached beyond an earthly color, stained purple in parts where I hadn’t rinsed the Clairol Shimmer Lights out well enough. Despite my impending, daunting move to California at the end of the summer, I felt grounded and wise.

Because I was in love.

And this would be my first time visiting the GYN as a woman in love and not a child fooling around. I assumed the questions at the beginning of the appointment would be almost enjoyable to answer. Yes, I have just one partner, because I don’t need anyone else. And YES, I’m enough for someone. I’m loved I’m loved I’m loved!

I expected my doctor to be impressed. And maybe she sensed this, because once I mentioned my *~BoYfRieNd~* she asked all the questions: who and where and how long?

I said we’d been together on and off for a year, which I guess could technically be true if you had a very vague definition of “together.” A very vague, fraught, painful definition. But all that was in the past (like at least three weeks ago), and I wanted to convey how big this felt. The delicious officialness of us.

So I smoothed out the truth in my answers.

To the point where if she’d asked me about the sizable pile of relationship red flags in my lap, I would’ve smoothed them out, too, and convinced her they were less of a red and more of a magenta.